Sorry to disappoint you, but lemmings do not commit mass suicide and eagles do not snatch toddlers.

As a nature and science writer, I am sometimes called to verify or debunk stories about wildlife. The eagle-picks-up-child hoax is a good example. A colleague came in one morning a few years ago and showed me a video of an eagle swooping down and picking up a toddler in a park, dropping him to the ground after a few seconds of flight. The video had been on YouTube for four hours and already had five million hits. It looked pretty realistic, and my phone started ringing.

Editor’s note: This article was first published in the Alaska Wildlife News online magazine.

In the headlamp beam, the little bat squeaking in the mist net looked like a winged shrew with big ears. State wildlife biologist Karen Blejwas explained the chittering squeaks were distress cries. The calls sometimes draw in more bats, but in mid-October in Southeast Alaska most bats have already migrated to wherever they go to hibernate.

Mountain goats are tricky. Nannies and billies look so similar that hunters have difficulty telling them apart, which makes wildlife management challenging. They are very difficult to hunt, but they are vulnerable to overhunting. Mountain goats are native only to western North America and inhabit some of the most inaccessible terrain imaginable, so they have not been well studied. But that’s changing.

Pictures of curious brown bears, cautious wolverines, hungry marten and playful coyote puppies are just a few mouse clicks away on the website of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Motion-triggered trail cameras have become valuable tools for wildlife research, and state biologists and their research partners are sharing highlights with the public. Dozens of candid wildlife images are featured in the department’s new trail camera gallery on the Wildlife Viewing section of the website.